


spaceball ricochet

by philthestone



Category: Guardians of the Galaxy (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: F/M, all the rest of the team too but not in significant speaking roles, heres the end result, look. this is stupid but its iconic and isnt that what gotg is all about, shoutout to zainab for saying 'pirates of the caribbean au' like. 2 years ago
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-17
Updated: 2020-05-17
Packaged: 2021-03-03 02:01:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,557
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24227032
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/philthestone/pseuds/philthestone
Summary: “Now c’mon, Quill, don’t look so put out,” says Yondu, as the moron crewman known as Taserface ties his hands together behind his back. “Everyone all shaped up to keep their promises, I reckon. You’re sacrificin’ yerself for your lady love here, like you promised. Jackass is takin’ over the world, like he promised. An’ missy over here is stayin’ loyal to her daddy, like she promised. So we’re all men of our word, overall, ‘cept Gamora, who’s, y’know, a woman.”“Shut up, Yondu,” says Peter, glowering at him.“Yes, shut up, Yondu”, says Ego, sounding bored. Naturally, Peter switches the glower over to him instead.
Relationships: Gamora & Nebula (Marvel), Gamora/Peter Quill, Peter Quill & Yondu Udonta
Comments: 10
Kudos: 48





	spaceball ricochet

**Author's Note:**

> for another prompt, which was something along the lines of "gotg pirates of the caribbean au". general plot follows that of curse of the black pearl.
> 
> this is my favorite kind of nonsense, guys. also, i kind of love how this turned out.
> 
> the title is from the song of the same name by T.Rex and as always reviews make my heart sing. for zainab -- this is all ur fault, u legend

****

I.

Gamora is not kidnapped, but runs away from home.

This would be more or less uncomplicated if she did not get kidnapped in the process _of_ running away from home. The pirates -- because they must be pirates, she thinks, curling her lip at the bad teeth and distinct lack of hygiene -- pull her out of the water as she’s trying to swim across to the Company flagship, and put a musket to her temple.

She’s not sure what her original plan was going to be. She is no expert at sailing ships. Expert at other things, sure -- like the sting of a hairpin against her scalp, or the snap of a fan at the end of her wrist, or, even, the precise swing of a well-balanced blade -- but not ships. Never, in her working memory, ships. She realizes as she shivers in her soaked nightclothes that she had unknowingly been expecting Peter (with his ship-friendly fingers and crooked grin) to have been there. In her daydream, he had run away with her, though he didn’t really have much to run away from. 

She tries to shove this thought aside; her original plan has immutably changed now. It’s the unfortunate fact that Peter’s stupid smiling face is already in the back of her mind that leads to her downfall anyway, because the pirates ask for a name and, without thinking, she offers his. 

The assembly goes quiet all of a sudden.

“We’ve gotta take her to the boss,” says the short one, left of her, with the eye patch. 

“I say what we do!” roars the largest, the thug that’s holding the weapon to her head. He has matted dreads and meaty hands. He contemplates a moment. “We’ve gotta take her to the boss.”

She’s marched to the captain’s cabin, shivering in her nightclothes, by the ugly idiot holding her. When the cabin door swings open, she half expects a snaggle-toothed villain and half expects her own father.

She finds neither -- only a well-groomed man with a greyed beard and combed-back hair, smiling genially at her. 

“Huh,” he says, “you certainly look different than I expected. But maybe my memory’s gone bad -- there’s no reason for you not to be Meredith Quill’s child.”

Gamora swallows, her hair wet and half-stuck in her mouth, and says, “And what of it?” in her loftiest Governor’s Daughter Voice.

“Oh, well,” says the pirate captain. “I’m your dad, Gamora.”

 _Oh, brother_ , Gamora thinks. And then the ship opens fire on Port Royal.

II.

Peter's not quite a _respectable_ blacksmith’s apprentice, but he tries his best to be something close to that.

Even with all the crazy stuff that’s happened in Peter’s life -- Mom dies, he’s kidnapped by pirates, their ship is blown apart and he’s pulled out of the ocean by the governor of Port Royal’s daughter, etcetera etcetera -- his early twenties have been easy enough overall that he doesn’t _hate_ listening to the authorities. Some things, though -- like pirate ships attacking the town in the middle of the night -- tend to really change a guy’s priorities. 

“What do you mean she’s _missing_?”

Commodore Saal has the patience of a saint and the scathing deadpan of an aristocrat. This is not a favorable combination when dealing with Peter Quill. 

“Mr. Quill, as I have _repeatedly_ stated _multiple_ times, Miss Gamora was found neither in her rooms nor anywhere in the Governor’s courtyard this morning. Now, whether this is _any_ of your concern --”

“We were literally just attacked by pirates! She could be hurt, or in danger, or --”

“I can assure you, the Governor has already sent out multiple search parties.”

“The _Governor_ \--” Peter catches himself before his voice betrays him. “I mean, you can’t _know_ that’s gonna be enough, Saal --”

Saal’s other shadow, standing to Peter’s left half-hidden in the dim lighting of the local jail, growls.

“You’re acting like Gamora can’t take care of herself.” 

Nebula’s angular frame is tighter than usual; Peter whirls around to glare at her. With her skirts dirtied from running through Port Royal’s rubble-ridden streets and her glare so baleful it may as well be blistering holes through the side of Peter’s head, she’s looking _extra_ sullen today. Peter can’t figure out if it’s because Gamora has gone missing and no one seems to care, or if it’s because Gamora’s gone missing and everyone seems to care. She keeps hovering by the edge of the wall as their descent into the local jail becomes darkened with shadows.

“So,” says Peter, “I should just be okay with her possibly having been _kidnapped by_ _pirates_?”

Nebula raises a devastating eyebrow. “You have extensive experience with that, right?”

“ _Hey_ \--”

“That is enough!” The Commodore whirls around, stopped in his determined stride down the prison steps to exhale thinly and dramatically through his nose. Nebula, who knows more about Gamora’s disappearance than either men are giving her credit for, continues to glare; Peter, who is not the wisest of men on a good day, tilts his chin up and tries to jump right back into it.

“If you’d just --”

“Mr. Quill,” interrupts Saal, through gritted teeth. “I have already told you everything I know. Even if I trusted you farther than I could throw you, which I do _not_ , I couldn’t tell you more. Now, if you will excuse me, I have far more pressing business to attend to; half the jail was blown out by that damned ship’s cannons.”

The heavens allow a moment of silence for Saal’s growing headache. Peter continues to hover by the weary Commodore’s elbow as he unlocks the door to the jail basement.

“But if you tell me what you _do_ know, I could help --”

“That is unlikely, Mr. Quill.”

“I could go after her, send _me_ after her --”

“Absolutely not, Mr. Quill.”

“But I ain’t bad with ships and I --” 

Peter goes quiet, voice dead in his throat. They’ve arrived at the cells, which are in a more or less pitiful state -- worst, really, than Saal gave away. Half of one wall’s caved in, leaving three of the four cells open to the back street, and deserted by their erstwhile occupants. 

It’s the last cell that Peter’s gaping at with all the breath knocked out of him like a particularly scandalized fish. Somehow, some unseen entity has seen to it that this particular cell remained unscathed by cannon fire, and its lone occupant is currently showing off all his mangled, ugly teeth as he grins widely at his sudden company, seemingly unphased by Saal’s stoney face and Nebula’s sour expression.

Peter says, “You’ve gotta be _shitting_ me,” because this day has just gotten exponentially worse than it already was.

“Now, boy,” drawls Yondu Udonta, reclining back against the cell wall and crossing his booted legs at the ankles. “Is that any way to greet your old captain?”

III.

Gamora can’t help but notice how many similarities there are between Peter and the smiling young woman whose portrait is hanging slightly-crookedly over the dining table in the Captain’s cabin. In the yellow lighting of the cabin, her curly hair is the exact same shade as his.

“I promise the food’s safe,” says Peter’s father, who is sitting at the other end of the table. “You can go ahead and eat -- you look half-starved, kid.”

“I’m fine, thank you,” says Gamora. Her stomach growls loudly; Peter’s father chuckles.

“Suit yourself. It’s not poisoned, if that’s what you’re worried about. Only the finest foods on this ship, for a man like myself. And for Meredith’s child, of course.”

“Right,” says Gamora, as carefully as she can. The crew -- _hooligans_ \-- had gifted her with a too-heavy silk dress that restricts movement and dips uncomfortably low at the neckline. Peter’s father ( _Captain Ego_ , the most thuggish of the pirates had called him) said it used to belong to Meredith. Gamora swallows her hunger down and tries for a smile. “So … how did you meet -- my mother?”

Ego gives her a strange look. “She never told you?”

Gamora clears her throat. “She said you were a famous ship’s captain. That you --” She scrambles to patch together the tidbits Peter has offered her, over the years -- there’s so much of his mother and so very little of his father, a ghost of a man mentioned with no little amount of resentment, “-- were lost at sea.” 

She pauses; it makes her addition more pointed than she intends it to be. “Everyone else thought you were dead.”

Ego laughs, a sound that should not strictly speaking make Gamora as uncomfortable as it does. “But Meredith didn’t believe ‘em, did she?”

Gamora offers him a close-lipped smile.

“Now now,” he says, “you must be wondering --”

“Where you’ve been all this time?” It’s sharp, unwisely so, but she thinks with belated relief that she can pass off the instinctual lick of protectiveness that’s coming out regarding Peter’s repressed abandonment issues as -- well, the repressed abandonment issues. Ego clucks his tongue. 

“You think I abandoned you.”

“Didn’t you?”

His eyes darken even as he keeps his expression open and genial. “I was out seeking a better life for you and your mother -- a life more worthy of _my_ child.”

“Meredith -- my mother didn’t care about that kind of thing. Neither did I.”

“Oh, but I did,” says Peter’s father. “And I think you will too, once you understand more.”

“Understand more of what?” asks Gamora. The air of the cabin is cool at her back already; something about Ego’s smile raises the hair at the nape of her neck.

“Your purpose in life, Gamora,” he says. “You see, there’s all kinds of magic to be found at the far reaches of the sea. The kind of magic that’s got unlimited power ...” His smile widens into a grin and in a moment of deep discomfort Gamora sees the closeness of his resemblance to Peter. “That sort of thing runs in the bloodline, sweetheart.”

IV.

Peter is no fool, even if Yondu does sometimes like to pretend he is. Or did -- he’s gone back to it now that Peter’s reluctantly following him around again, as if he has any other choice. 

He knows Yondu’s lying to him about _something_ , is the point. It pisses him off to no end, along with the fact that he’s somehow back to breaking the law again the minute Yondu’s lousy ass shows up in Port Royal. But, then, Peter figures, it was all too easy to pick the locks on that cell. And steal a ship. And disobey direct orders from local law enforcement to find his missing best friend, whom he possibly maybe might be a little in love with. 

Anyway, beggars can’t be choosers, is the _point_ \-- rescuing Gamora is the important thing here, and Peter is going to _focus_ on that, even if the crew they’re apparently going to be doing that with is ...

“Mr. Kraglin!”

“Yessir, Cap’n!”

… Whatever this is.

“Now lesse. What kinda dumbass have you scrounged up fer our respectable Mister Quill here on this shiny new day?” 

Peter scowls, but remains firmly rooted in place a step behind Yondu. He has at least twelve percent of a plan going, here, and he has to make sure they stick to it. Pirates can be lying bastards, after all; he _knows_.

“Here they are, Cap’n, all lined up.” Kraglin, who is just as spindly but slightly more tattooed than the last time Peter saw him, clears his throat importantly. The group to his left looks about as mismatched an assortment as Peter’s ever seen, from very large to very small and missing half their teeth between them. He’s pretty sure he can spot a home-made bomb stuffed down one guy’s pants. 

Kraglin points to the hulking start of the line. “This one’s called Drax.”

“The Destroyer,” interjects the guy, large and tattooed and standing at the front of the motley lineup of miscellaneous weirdos that Kraglin’s somehow hustled up from the Tortuga barline.

“The Destroyer,” repeats Yondu, sniffing. “Tha’s ... good.” 

He steps over to the next guy, whose head comes up to Drax’s waist. Shorty squares his shoulders a bit -- he’s the one with the bomb hidden down his trousers -- and sniffs. He’s about a third of the size of the man next to him, who’s tall as a tree and almost as brown as one, too. He has a parrot sitting on his shoulder. Peter tries his best not to make a face at them.

“Rat,” says Yondu, nodding. “Good t’see you again.”

“Up yours, Cap.” 

“Aauu-huh.” Yondu clears his throat. “Mr. Groot.” A pause. “Mr. Groot’s parrot.”

“I am Groot,” squawks the parrot.

“Uh huh. An’ now lesse, here …” 

Yondu pauses, leans in and narrows his eyes at the last, oddly familiar figure. It twitches, sharp elbows stiff and awkward -- Peter barely takes in the floppiness of its large-brimmed hat before Yondu’s reached over and yanked it off.

“Hah!” he yells. This is, Peter knows, his way of sounding genuinely startled; the freshly-revealed girl has pulled out a gun in the one smooth movement it took for her face to be uncovered, and is now pointing it at him.

“Nebula!” yelps Peter. 

“ _A girl_!” squawks Kraglin.

“Now that’s a nice lookin’ gun,” says the small man called Rat.

Nebula cocks the gun and lifts her chin.

“I’m coming with you,” she growls, “so that I may kick my sister’s ass _myself_ for trying to run away without me.”

They all stare at her.

“That seems pretty reas’nable if you ask me, Cap’n,” says Kraglin finally. 

Yondu bares his teeth in a grin; Peter covers his face with his hands.

V.

Gamora could have told you without being subjected to one that blood rituals are freaky and uncomfortable things. As it is, she’s lying at the bottom of a cave and the psychopath who shares Peter’s apparently-all-powerful bloodline is trying to figure out why he hasn’t embodied the power of the seven seas yet.

Or something. Gamora’s more resilient than most, but even she blacks out a little bit when she gets hit across the back of the head for not having magical-enough blood.

She’s contemplating how feasible it would be to crawl through the piles of jewelry without anyone hearing her when something touches her arm.

“Ow! _Ow ow ow ah_ ah --!” It really is very impressive, how skilled Peter is at emitting a string of expletives in a whisper so low that it can barely be heard. Gamora, eyes wide and a little bit in shock, lets go of his wrist. His face is pink from the pain and his hair is plastered to his forehead because he just _emerged_ without _warning_ out of the channel behind her and he looks all things considered more of an idiot than a saviour.

Gamora thinks abruptly that she loves him more than anything in the world. She gathers her skirts and slips into the water with him to the clamouring sounds of Ego’s hooligan crew complaining about the failed sea witchcraft, and everything seems to be going smoothly until they hear Ego’s voice, sudden and clear over the chaos:

“Well, you idiots, did anyone not think to wonder if she _isn’t_ actually Meredith’s child?”

Peter’s white face goes a shade whiter. Gamora grimaces and tries not to be too concerned about the fact that everything’s about to implode.

VI.

Peter wonders if all dads are this much of a jackass.

Probably not. Then again, Gamora’s is the only other one he knows, and somehow his vibes are even worse than Ego’s -- which is saying something, because Ego really wants to use Peter’s blood for ritual sacrifice and is about to maroon Yondu on a deserted island and sell Gamora back to her tyrannical father.

Well, actually, the Yondu thing might not be so bad.

“Now c’mon, Quill, don’t look so put out,” says Yondu, as the moron crewman known as Taserface ties his hands together behind his back. “Everyone all shaped up to keep their promises, I reckon. You’re sacrificin’ yerself for your lady love here, like you promised. Jackass is takin’ over the world, like he promised. An’ missy over here is stayin’ loyal to her daddy, like she promised. So we’re all men of our word, overall, ‘cept Gamora, who’s, y’know, a woman.”

“Shut up, Yondu,” says Peter, glowering at him.

“Yes, shut up, Yondu”, says Ego, sounding bored. Peter switches his glower over to him instead. Ego seems unperturbed, like it’s par for the course for his long-lost child to glare a hole through his skull because he murdered said child’s mother. “Chin up, son, you’re about to become all-powerful. That’s cause for a smile, don’t you think? Now, Mister Taserface, if you’d be so kind as to escort this beautiful and deceitful young lady to the rowboats, so that she can cross over to her father’s flagship.”

Peter flexes his fingers against the ropes tying them and refuses to look at Gamora. _There is no unspoken thing_ , she’d said, and agreed to go home -- go _back --_ with the Governor. Her head is held up high, with dignity, and his heart aches a little bit. Or it would, if Yondu didn’t wink at him before being shoved off the plank.

Bastard.

VII. 

Gamora is not afraid of the darkness of night, but she is afraid of many other things. Her father, for one, who she left floating somewhere in the middle of the ocean as she escaped (yet again -- Peter’s inability to learn is rubbing off on her) onto a pirate ship. Peter’s father, for another, who is just an all-around asshole of a guy. And their current situation, which, really, could be better.

Right now, she’s covering up her panic with overt irritation.

“Where’s Peter?” she demands.

The assorted crew standing on the pirate ship in front of her exchanges awkward looks, and then shrugs.

“You mean he’s still _in there_?!”

“Well,” offers Rocket, “ _in there_ ain’t so bad. There was a lotta gold in that cave.”

“He is a strong and resilient man,” adds Drax, “even if he looks the part of a pathetic fool.”

“I am Groot,” squawks Groot’s parrot.

Gamora looks to Nebula in desperation. She’s awkwardly trying to protect a shivering Mantis from the cold by resting a spare feathered hat on top of her head; at Gamora’s look, she grunts.

“Unbelievable!” says Gamora. “Un- _be_ -lievable.”

It’s pretty easy, all things considered, to take the little boat and row back to the freaky cave of child sacrifice. Gamora grumbles about pirates the whole way there.

VIII.

Peter’s much more forgiving about the whole “were going to abandon him to blood rituals” thing than Gamora would be. 

They _do_ show up eventually and help blow up the cave, he argues, and his crazy dad along with it. Not so bad, as far as loyal asshole friends go.

IX.

For a second time, Gamora finds herself on a pirate ship when she should really be in the Governor’s mansion at Port Royal. This time, she’s beaming.

“Euch, you’re all drippin’ wet! Gettem some towels, Groot! They’re gonna get the gunpowder damp.”

“Aw, shut up, Rat,” says Yondu, with fondness. 

“We came an’ got you, Cap’n, just like we said we would,” Kraglin says.

“They debated the merit of leaving you to hang for a good two hours,” Nebula deadpans, from her position leaning against the starboard railing.

“I am Groot,” says Groot’s parrot.

“Well,” says Yondu, after a long, tense moment. “Can’t say that ain’t what I’d do.”

Peter barely notices Yondu wink at him from across the deck, Gamora thinks; he’s too occupied with looking at her, as wet as she is and beaming just as hugely. She wants to kiss him, and then find something to eat, in that order. Around them, the rest of the crew of the pirate ship _Benatar_ is scrambling about, righting their heading away from the Port Royal bluffs and the new price on all their heads.

Again -- and it feels like that evening on Ego's awful ship was almost a whole lifetime ago -- her stomach growls. Aiding and abetting the escape of a man convicted of piracy on the morning he’s to be hanged and simultaneously escaping from under the oppressive thumb of one’s tyrannical father all in one morning seems to have worked up quite an appetite. Peter’s still looking at her, water dripping into his eyes, wringing the ridiculous hat he’d been wearing earlier in his hands. He’s been through so much the last week, she thinks, and aches somewhere in the pit of her heart at what he’d said at the hanging, right before they ran:

 _I should’ve said something, about the unspoken thing_.

It all worked out in the end, she thinks -- her running away plan. Peter is here, beside her, with his ship-friendly fingers and crooked grin.

It’s what he offers her now, sweetly -- more sweetly than a pirate might, but crooked still.

“What,” he says.

“Just --” Her lips betray her in their tentative joy. “The unspoken thing, probably.”

He nods, and leans in, and pulls her against him with one warm, heavy arm, sopping clothes and all. The _Benatar_ sails them to freedom.

X.

(She kisses him a week later, leaning against the ship’s railing as they look up at the stars together.)

**Author's Note:**

> im realizing now that im posting this that this fic contains a huge, glaring logical error, which is that 1700s pirate gamora looks in my mind just like regular zoe saldana and so logically it makes absolutely no sense at all for ego to buy that she's merediths daughter, but we're just going to
> 
> handwave that away


End file.
